German architect (1884–1971)
Albin Grau (December 22, 1884 in Leipzig-Schönefeld – March 27, 1971) was a German artist, architect and occultist, 👍 and the producer and production designer for F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). He was largely responsible for the look and spirit 👍 of the film, including the sets, costumes, storyboards and promotional materials.
Nosferatu
A lifelong student of the occult and member of Fraternitas 👍 Saturni, under the magical name of Master Pacitius, Grau was able to imbue Nosferatu with hermetic and mystical undertones.[1] One 👍 example in particular was the cryptic contract that Count Orlok and Knock exchanged, which was filled in Enochian, hermetic and 👍 alchemical symbols. Grau was also a strong influence on Orlok's verminous and emaciated look. Grau claimed to had originally gotten 👍 the idea of shooting a vampire film while serving in the German Army during World War I, when a Serbian 👍 farmer told him that his father was a vampire and one of the Undead, though this story may have been 👍 fabricated to promote the film.[2]
Before Grau and Murnau collaborated on Nosferatu, which was shot in 1921, Grau was planning to 👍 create several movies devoted to the occult and supernatural through his studio, Prana Film. Since Nosferatu was a loose and 👍 unauthorized translation of Bram Stoker's Dracula Prana had to declare bankruptcy in order to evade infringement lawsuits. This made Nosferatu 👍 its one and only release.
The Weida Conference [ edit ]
In 1925 Grau participated in the Weida Conference, an international meeting 👍 of occult leaders at Hohenleuben, along with his lodge secretary Eugen Grosche (Frater Gregorius), Master of the Danzig Lodge, Otto 👍 Gebhardi (Frater Ich will), Gebhardi's lover Martha Kuntzel (Soror Ich will es), Heinrich Tranker (as Frater Recnartus, head of the 👍 Rosicrucian occult lodge Collegium Pansophicum, aka Pansophic Orient Lodge, Berlin) and his wife Helen, and Aleister Crowley with his entourage 👍 of Leah Hirsig, Dorothy Olsen, and Norman Mudd. Grau shot a film of the conference, currently lost.[1] The conference was 👍 not a smooth event and Traenker withdrew his support of Crowley. The differences between Traenker and Crowley led to a 👍 schism in the Pansophical Lodge between the brothers who disagreed with Crowley and those who accepted Crowley's Law of Thelema, 👍 including Gregorius and Grau. Following these differences the Pansophical Lodge would be officially closed in 1926. Those brothers of the 👍 Pansophia Lodge who accepted the teachings of Crowley would join Grosche in founding the Fraternitas Saturni.
Pacitius (Grau) gave up all 👍 his lodge titles, refusing the invitation to head the new order, and left the Master's Chair of the Fraternitas Saturni, 👍 Orient Berlin, to Eugen Grosche, who would lead it as Master Gregorius into the new Aquarian/Saturnian age. Grau contributed fascinating, 👍 if mathematically obscure, articles on sacred geometry to Saturn Gnosis, the periodical of the Fraternitas Saturni (five issues between July 👍 1928 and March 1930).[3]
Later years [ edit ]
After Fraternitas Saturni was prohibited in 1936 by the Nazi regime, Albin Grau 👍 was threatened with persecution but managed to emigrate to Switzerland.
After the war, he returned to Germany and pursued a career 👍 in commercial art and lived in the Alpine village of Bayrischzell, Upper Bavaria, until his death in 1971. Bayrischzell honours 👍 him to this day.
In popular culture [ edit ]
Albin Grau was one of the main characters in the fictionalized movie 👍 account of the filming of Nosferatu, titled Shadow of the Vampire (2000), directed by American filmmaker E. Elias Merhige. He 👍 was played by Udo Kier.
References [ edit ]
